Red Zone

Philly.com Staff

For as long as Michael Vick was the starting QB in Philadelphia, reporters asked him every offseason whether or not he learned how to slide yet. Vick of course favored diving head first, which would result in more yardage but opened him up to shots from opposing defenses. That was obviously not ideal for a player with a long history of missing games due to injury.

Vick is gone, and Nick Foles is now 'the guy' in Philly. While Foles is willing to slide (or whatever you would call what he does), he will not remind anyone of Vince Coleman, and the slide questions have officially commenced this year.

"I'm working on it," said Foles. "It's a beautiful grass field (at the NovaCare complex) and we have a slip and slide, so I'll get it before I leave (camp)." When asked how he would rate his sliding skills on a scale from one to 10, Foles gave himself a three.

I went through Foles' season last year and found that he tried to slide 13 times. Foles has five distinct sliding styles: the bicycle, the "stop and sit," the flop, the slide/dive hybrid, and the Houdini. I wouldn't give him a "three" on any of them, with perhaps the exception of the Houdini, which would earn a 10 every day of the week. Here are all of them, in GIF form:

The bicycle

On these slides, Foles continues to run as he goes to the ground. It almost looks like he's pretending to ride a bicycle that is crashing.

The bicycle approach is so confusing to referees and opposing defenses that it's apparently legal to tee off on Foles as he's 'sliding' without drawing a flag.

The 'stop and sit'

Self-explanatory.

The flop

On these slides, Foles basically just throws his legs out in front of him, hits the ground hard, and stops right in his tracks.

Even in the snow, The #FolesFlop doesn't even result in Foles actually sliding along the ground.

The slide/dive hybrid

The Houdini

Here's a #FolesSlide that concludes with Foles ceasing to exist, which is amazing.

Foles started 10 games last season. In his starts, he averaged 5.4 rushes per game, which is a significant enough total that he should know how to slide. Goofing on Foles' quirky slides is fun, but the reality is that he does need to learn how to protect himself better.